Our Family

Our Peace Corps experience was a huge success in large part because of our loving family. We were soon adopted by the islanders after they figured out that we were really going to stay. At first they believed we would soon be leaving after being there for a while, but we didn't. After they understood this they got to work finishing our house instead of putting us up in the government guest house. One day there was a feast event in the meeting hall (maneapa) and we were dismissed after a while they had a village discussion about what to do with the palagis. A small built man with a sweet smile showed up at our door a while later and he told us that he had adopted us and we would be a part of his family. We were blown away with the jesture. Later we learned that it was decided that Esua's family would be ours since he grew a lot of taro and the villagers had noticed we liked to eat taro. I can't think of another family in the village that was a more perfect fit for us. They loved us as their own and we loved them in return. They told us when we were making cultural mistakes, they made sure we had the food we needed and they even named children after each of us. We were truly a part of their family.